Selective frecover from DLT4000 fbackup tape fails

[José Enrique González]

When trying to frecover a specific file from a DLT4000 fbackup tape, I'm getting this:

[hpprod] /as400 #frecover -Xxomv -f /dev/rmt/1m -i /tempo/export/Produact/expopro1.txt
frecover(2112): unexpected DDS marker read. Status:
Tape drive is on line
Immediate Reporting enabled
frecover(2110): checkpoint record read
frecover(5401): Volume 1 completed.

Backup is one tape long, file is in the backup index, file name supplied matchs exactly the one in the backup index, backup is succesfully completed as shown in fbackup databse, and (what's most amazing) a frecover command executed with -N option lists the file (and all the other ones) without any errors. I'm using this conf file for fbackup:

blocksperrecord 128
records 64
checkpointfreq 1024
readerprocesses 2
maxretries 0
retrylimit 5000000
chgvol /appl/resp/rspCHVOL.ux
error /appl/resp/rspERROR.ux

Any help you can bring me is hiaghly appreciated. I'm specially concerned about DDS marker error inthe output, as I'm using a DLT4000 Isn't it wrong?

[Stefan Farrelly]

Looks ok to me. The file you wanted recovered wasnt on the tape.

The DDS mesage is informative, and its only shown because you used the -o option.

Try dumping the index off the tape using -I to verify that the file you want to recover is actually on the tape.

[Darren Prior]

Hi,

Can you tell us which fbackup patch you have? I seem to recall a similar issue a while back that was fixed by a fbackup patch.

regards,

Darren.

[José Enrique González]

Current patch level is PHCO_25424 now.

[Darren Prior]

Ah, that's the patch that fixed the error I was thinking of! You could double check that you are actually using the correctly patched version of frecover by doing a what on the frecover binary and checking for the patch number.

regards,

Darren.

[José Enrique González]

This is the output for what /usr/sbin/frecover

frecover:
$Revision: 82.4.1.13 $
PATCH_11_00: main.o utilities.o files.o io.o volheaders.o hpux_rel.o rm
t.o vdi.o 01/11/19

It seems to be not correctly patched. What do you think? Thanks for your comment

[Steven E. Protter]

Never hurts to make sure the patch is correctly installed.

swverify PHCO_25424

It should work the way you are doing it.

SEP

[José Enrique González]

Patch installation verified and correct

[Managed Services]

In your command line '#frecover -Xxomv -f /dev/rmt/1m -i /tempo/export/Produact/expopro1.txt'

/Produact? Should that be /Product?

[Bill Hassell]

Verify that the file is on the tape by listing the tape contents:

frecover -I /var/tmp/MyTapeIndex -f /dev/rmt/1m

Then search the file:

grep expopro /var/tmp/MyTapeIndex

If nothing is returned, search for the directory:

grep tempo/export/Produact /var/tmp/MyTapeIndex

Since -N shows the file, it's not clear why the marker is showing up. The "DDS" text is in the status messages for frecover, and the word "DLT" (or AIT or Ultrium, etc) does not appear at all. This is probably a cosmetic error as fbackup/frecover do support more modern tape drives.

Note that in your config file, you can probably get better throughput by increasing the number of reader processes from 2 to 6. The extra reader processes will keep the data flowing fast enough to prevent DLT re-positioning delays.